How followfood moved 30+ trading partners to a new ERP in under two weeks
About
followfood is a German sustainable food company built around transparency across the supply chain. Its portfolio includes more than 90 products, with every product carrying a tracking code that allows consumers to trace its origin.
As the company grew, its existing ERP could no longer support the processes and volumes required by the business. followfood decided to move to a new ERP — while keeping the established digital connections to its retail and logistics partners running.
Challenge
Migrating the ERP created a second challenge: what happens to EDI?
followfood already exchanged orders, invoices and shipping documents digitally with more than 30 trading and logistics partners, including major retailers such as REWE and EDEKA.
With a traditional EDI setup, moving to a new ERP would have meant rebuilding the individual mappings between the ERP and each trading partner. More than 30 connections, formats and partner-specific requirements would have needed to be recreated for the new system.
The ERP migration was already a major internal project. followfood needed to move its EDI setup without turning it into another lengthy IT migration — and without falling back to retailer portals or manual document processing during the transition.
Solution
Instead of rebuilding every EDI connection, followfood connected its new ERP once to Procuros.
Procuros sits between the ERP and followfood’s trading-partner network, handling the different EDI formats, communication channels and partner-specific requirements. The ERP therefore only needs to exchange one standardized data model with Procuros rather than maintaining individual mappings for every retailer.
Existing connections could be moved to the new ERP without recreating the entire EDI landscape from scratch.
Because many of followfood’s trading partners were already part of the Procuros network, the new setup was implemented in under two weeks.
The same infrastructure can also connect partners that are not traditionally EDI-ready. Documents received through channels such as email can be structured and transferred directly into the ERP, allowing followfood to bring smaller suppliers and producers into the same digital workflow.
Thanks to Procuros, we were able to quickly follow up on EDI. A new ERP system already provides for enough substantial changes — EDI should simply be integrated seamlessly and without a lengthy project.
Results
followfood migrated its EDI operations to its new ERP in just two weeks, connecting over 30 trading and logistics partners through Procuros.
Today, more than 15,000 transactions per year flow through the setup, while automated data exchange has reduced errors by 90% and saves 5–6 hours per person every week.
Most importantly, the ERP migration did not require followfood to rebuild and maintain dozens of individual EDI integrations.
Procuros separated the trading-partner layer from the ERP itself: one ERP connection gives followfood access to its entire partner network, regardless of each partner’s format or technical requirements.
That means the next ERP change, new retailer or new document flow does not require rebuilding the EDI landscape from scratch.
What I appreciate about Procuros is the uncomplicated and quick communication. Problems are solved in a short time and there’s one less thing to worry about.
